Boohoo Uses Instagram Celebs to Grow Revenues by 51% in 2016

Boohoo used amongst other things Instagram to boost reach and thus distribution. The Guardian:

Neil Catto, Boohoo’s chief financial officer, said the company’s success with mostly millennial customers had been driven by its focus on encouraging celebrities and bloggers to post about the retailer’s clothes on Instagram.

“We work with a whole spectrum of influencers, celebrities and wannabe bloggers – all people with a presence online – and we work with them so they can spread the word about Boohoo. It goes likes wildfire on Instagram,” he said.

Catto said it was hard to single out any Instagram user as delivering the most sales, but the launch of a plus-size range with the model Jordyn Woods had proved very popular. “It got a lot of buzz as she is friends with the the Kardashians,” he said.

He declined to say how much influential people are paid to promote the company’s clothes on social media, but added that some can be encouraged to help out in return for free samples and pizza. “You can pay people to wear your clothes, or give them free clothes, [but] some are just interested in our fashion and will come along and have a pizza in our offices and put the range on Instagram,” Catto said.

On average, Boohoo customers place 2.13 orders over the year. The average shopping cart amounts to £37.76, containing, on average, 2.89 pieces of clothing.

Boohoo wants to maintain its impressive EBITDA margin of 10% in the medium term. (Which in turn will most likely keep the stock price ascending..) Compared to other online retailers, Boohoo has rather low marketing costs of just 6%.

Maybe more online retailers should invite Instagram celebrities over for a pizza..